Absolution
by smaragdbird
Summary: Before Smaug attacked Erebor, Fili and Legolas were engaged and quite happily so. Now, sixty years later, they meet each other again when Thranduil has the dwarves imprisoned (Fili/Legolas)


Fili tensed when the door was opened. He hadn't seen Kili or anyone else since the elves had thrown him into this room and left him here. They had been kind enough giving him food and new clothes but no one had answered his questions about Kili and Thorin and the rest of their friends.

"Fili?" For a moment he forgot to breathe. He hadn't heard that voice in a long time, hadn't believed he would hear it again.

Legolas remained standing in the doorway as if he as uncertain whether he was welcome or not. He hadn't changed, of course not.

"Yes." Fili said because he didn't know what else to say.

"My father said…I didn't believe…I had to see if it was really you."

"It is me." The last time they had seen each other had been two days before Smaug's attack. Officially it had been a diplomatic visit; unofficially they had barely left Fili's room the whole week.

He couldn't say who of them moved first but they met halfway, memories taking over and making the height difference between them less awkward than it should have been.

"I didn't think you'd remember me", Fili said when they separated.

"There are days when I remember nothing but you", Legolas laid his hand against Fili's cheek and Fili instinctively leaned into the caress.

"Yes, me too", Fili admitted.

"Why are you here? My father wouldn't tell me anything."

"Is that why you're here?" Fili asked and disentangled himself from Legolas.

"No, I'm here for you." He could point out that with Legolas and he on opposing sides, mere feelings didn't count for much. But he didn't. A part of him, the part that missed Legolas desperately, wanted to believe him.

"You make a bad spy" Fili told him coldly.

"I'm trying to help you."

"That's what your father said before he betrayed us."

"He didn't. And even if he had done it I'm not my father."

Fili looked aside, pressing his lips tightly together.

"It's about Erebor, isn't it?" Legolas asked quietly. "You wouldn't be back in this part of the world if it wasn't for that damn mountain."

"That's my home you're talking about."

"Maybe I value your life more than a heap of rocks and gold."

"You didn't value my life much in the last sixty years, did you? Not a single word from you in all these years, but suddenly you want me to trust you? Go, Legolas. Go and leave me alone." He turned his back on Legolas, preferring to look at the darkness in the corner of his cell than at Legolas' face.

He heard retreating steps and finally the door closing and being locked and tried to swallow his unwarranted disappointment. It seemed that Thorin had not been the only one who had put his faith into an elf wrongly.

/

There was no way of telling time inside the cells. The elves gave him food and water, better than anything he had eaten since leaving Beorn's house but it seemed to turn into ashes in his mouth. Durin's day would be soon and if they missed it, their whole quest, all the dangers they had face, would have been for nothing.

That and Legolas' visit was still on his mind. Fili had never admitted to it, had never spoken of Legolas or their engagement at all since the destruction of Erebor but he had always hoped that when they saw each other again, things could return to the way they had once been. It had been part of the reason he had joined Thorin's quest. If they regained Erebor surely he and Legolas could...maybe they could...but he had been mistaken. There was nothing there between them anymore but the foolish hopes of a stupid boy.

Fili's thoughts were interrupted when the door was opened. However instead of the elf who had brought him his meal the last time it was Legolas.

"What do I need to do to proof myself to you?" He asked his eyes meeting Fili's without hesitance.

Fili shrugged. "I want to trust you but I don't know if I can."

"Then you should follow me." With those words Legolas was gone, the cell door left open.

Gingerly Fili followed him. Legolas had climbed a stair and opened another door. "Come out", Fili heard him say. "Someone's waiting for you."

"Kili!" Fili wrapped his arms around his brother so tightly that Kili complained.

"Have you seen Thorin?" Kili asked immediately.

"He's in another dungeon", Legolas answered for Fili.

Kili looked from Fili to Legolas and back to Fili, and then he grinned and elbowed his brother in the ribs. "You two made up then?" Trust his little brother to notice Fili's personal problems above anything else.

In the aftermath of Smaug's attack and Thranduil's refusal to help them he had put on a brave front and never mentioned Legolas again to anyone. But he had missed him. More than he had even want to admit to himself.

One by one Legolas freed the dwarves from their cells until they reached Thorin.

"What do you want, elf?" Thorin spat when he saw Legolas.

"Thorin", Fili grinned as he appeared next to him.

"Fili?"

"Quick, this way", Legolas said after he had opened Thorin's cell as well.

"Why should we trust you?" Thorin narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"I am not my father."

"Please", Fili added. "He would gain nothing from this."

"Except our humiliation if we're caught again." Thorin wasn't convinced.

"Are you asking my price, dwarf?" Legolas asked coldly.

"I knew it. How much of the treasure do you want?"

"There's only one treasure I want and that's Fili. I want you to honour the engagement that was made before the fall of Erebor." Legolas met Thorin's eyes without hesitation.

"It's for him to decide if he wants to marry the son of a traitor and false friend", Thorin said with blatant disgust in his voice.

"Yes, I do!" Fili hissed impatiently. "Are you two done? We need to get moving."

He had expected for Legolas to lead them up and into the forest but instead Legolas took stairs down deeper into the heart of Thranduil's halls. They encountered no one else until they reached a small stream and a few boats that were moored there.

"Follow the river. It's the safest way to Esgaroth. You should reach it within two days. I hope it will be enough", he threw two bags filled with food into one of the boats as well.

Fili nodded. "Thank you." But then he had to ask. "What about you?" he doubted that Thranduil would be happy to learn that they had escaped.

"Remember your promise."

"You think I ever forgot that?" Fili asked and grabbed Legolas' tunic to pull him into a desperate, passionate kiss. Everything froze and for a moment there was no dragon, no quest, no betrayal and no death.

Just Fili and Legolas and their all encompassing, raging, ridiculous love.

"I'll see you when it's done. When you meet me at the gates of Erebor," Legolas said and leaned his forehead against Fili's. It sent Fili's heart racing harder, more painfully than even when his hands had burned Fili's skin, when his lips had touched Fili's. He took one of his knives and gave it to Fili.

"Yes, you will", Fili said as he climbed into the boat as well.

"So….", Bilbo said slowly, "You know him, then, I guess?"

"Know him?" Fili's grin was all sorts of smug, "I'm going to marry him."


End file.
